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From: jmonroy@netcom.com (Jesus Monroy Jr)
Subject: QIC NEWS vol.1 Special Edition #1
Message-ID: <jmonroyC5py56.B85@netcom.com>
Keywords: QIC FDC NEWS
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1993 07:00:42 GMT
Lines: 448
Released
+----------------------------------------+
QQQQQQ II CCCCCC
QQ QQ II CC N E W S
QQ QQ II CC
QQ QQ II CC for 386bsd
QQQQQQ II CCCCCC Vol.1 Special Edition #1
QQ (r)
+----------------------------------------+
News about QIC-40/80
About this Special Edition:
This Special Edition is to clear the "in-queue".
I have had and seen so much news on the QIC-40/80,
I have to recant it.
Story titles by the quai-editor-in-chief.
BTW, QIC NEW vol.1 no.4 was lable wrong in the header.
Look for a second version of vol.1 no.3.
If you are confused e-mail me for a copy of NO.4.
From the desk of the quasi-editor-in-chief:
"Just because I am numbering these things don't get the idea
that I am going to do any more of these".
"QIC" is a registered trademark of the
Quarter-Inch Cartridge Drive Standards, Inc. (QIC).
UNIX is a trademark of USL, a division of Novell (last I heard).
This publication is not affiliated with "QIC" or "QIC DATA NEWS".
All comments, issues, and errors are only attributable
to the quasi-editor-in-chief.
Thanks:
To those on the NET for their stories.
Jennifer Gordon for being helpful in grammar corrections.
*=======================================*
| Tabloid contents |
*=======================================*
| <1>__ from 386BSD |
| |
| [I want my QIC-40/80]__ |
| [The Great Prophets]__ |
| |
| <2>__ from OS/2 - LINUX |
| |
| [Fall of Babylon]__ |
| [Blinded by the MS-Window]__ |
| [The First Breakdown]__ |
| |
| <M>__ Meaningless dribble. |
*=======================================*
hint: search for "<?>__"
hint++: search for "[?]__"
<1>__ from 386BSD
=============================================================
[I want my QIC-40/80]__
=============================================================
mail sward%cfa3.DECNET@cfa.harvard.edu
Re: Subject: QIC 40/80 comments
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 93 14:35:29 -0400
I thought you might appreciate some quick QIC stuff :-)
Fiddling with QIC 40/80 drives and drivers has been a
long and sporadic hobby of mine. Like many others,
what I really wanted and still want is a low cost, reliable
SCSI tape drive. Wistfully speaking, a QIC 40/80 type drive
but with a SCSI interface and still in the price range of
floppy-based QIC 40/80 drives, would be ideal.
Originally I spent some time trying to convince several
QIC 40/80 makers to come out with SCSI models of these drives.
Only one vendor showed any interest. In fact, only one vendor
was even polite about it :-) However, severe procrastination
on the part of the vendor and decision on my part to get on
with the rest of my life finally consigned the issue to oblivion.
For a while I toyed with the idea of designing and building
my own SCSI/FLOPPY embedded interface for QIC 40/80 drives.
The idea being to add this little board to the drive and turn
it into a SCSI tape drive. I never did this, being too busy
and otherwise convinced that somebody else would do it REAL
SOON NOW :-) I even managed to obtain tape drive driver source
code from one of the tape drive vendors, no small feat.
Unfortunately I am constrained by agreement from showing
the code to another living soul.
Serendipity seems to be seren-dipping at my door. It seems
that the aforementioned but unnamed QIC 40/80 tape drive
vendor is finally going to come out with a SCSI version of
its QIC 80 tape drive. I am in the process of confirming
this, so at the present it remains a vicious rumor :-)
In the meantime Archive has come out with a couple of relative
low cost QIC tape drives with SCSI interfaces. An Archive
QIC-6250 compatible cartridge tape drive with SCSI interface
can be purchased from DC-Drives for $399.00 (bare drive)
while the QIC-6525 compatible model sells for $569.00 for
the bare drive.
=============================================================
[The Great Prophets]__
=============================================================
mail kew@timesink.spk.wa.us
re: Subject: Re: Subject: Re: Kindeling material... Send ...
Sorry for the late reply
-------------------------
>> >
>> > SO what does this have to do with 386BSD.
>>
>> If it had *anything* to do with BSD, I'd have posted rather than
>> mailed you.
>>
>> > Insightful to the end... why don't you help me in
>> > training this league of newbies.
>> >
>>
>> You flatter me! I am one great Air Traffic Controller, ...
>> ::
>> -- despite the FAQs reassurance to the contrary -- that 4 meg of
>> memory is *not* enough to run BSD (unless you enjoy watching your
>> HD thrash).
>>
Yes, I quite understand.
>> Having delved into both the BSD and Linux worlds, I find it
>> distressing that the BSD world seems to populated by
>> @emph{wizards} that claim to know what is best for us and
>> are reluctant to let others participate in their little
>> game (I'm thinking of the Great Patchkit Debate here).
>>
The ever present Great Patchkit debate.
>> This is unfortunate, since most of these gurus are old
>> VAXen and know so very little about the PC architecture.
>> Note the lack of floppy formatting ability as a prime
>> example of their arrogance.
>>
Yes, It is too bad most of these guys are really good
programmers.
>> The Linux world is a stark contrast to this, being filled
>> with former Messy-DOSers that may not know much of the
>> finer details of *nix, but are quick studies and know a
>> lot about PCs. Linux has drivers for PS/2 mice, SoundBlasters,
>> weird CD-ROMs, all the VGA cards you can imagine (except mine,
>> of course), a sorta-qic40, and one fast floppy driver.
>>
Sound like a lot of my friends.
>> You provide a near-constant source of irritance that continues
>> to nip at the heels of those self-proclaimed @vile{High Priests}
>> of BSD. I find that amusing.
>>
I am going to quote the above without your name for the
next "QICNEWS"
>> And no, I don't have the expertise or information necessary
>> to fix the device drivers in BSD; but then again I don't have
>> to be a mechanical engineer to know that my car's not running
>> well.
>>
Thanks for your comments.
I almost feel alone sometimes.
_____________________________________________________
Jesus Monroy Jr
/386BSD/device-drivers /fd /qic /clock /documentation
_____________________________________________________
<2>__
=============================================================
[Fall of Babylon]__
=============================================================
From: hoppie@kub.nl (Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers)
Subject: QIC80 tape support NEWS!
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 09:05:30 GMT
Organization: Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands
QIC80 / Jumbo lookalikes support
================================
The Net Did It Again!
I received a message from a CMS employee, telling me that he
fought with management for a while and got them to release
the necessary material to program a nice device driver for OS/2.
Note: this is NO official CMS support, we have to do it ourselves,
but at least we get the stuff needed for it.
Aside from the fact that I personally think CMS should provide
a driver themselves, instead of letting us hack it together,
at least we can now start working on a nice project that will
pay off for ourselves.
As soon as I get the material, I will create a post out of it.
For the moment, the main newsgroup for communications about the
project will be comp.os.os2.programmer. A mailing list will
be considered.
As many people appeared to be eager to start on this one, some
internal communication might save us from doubling efforts. On
the other side, since the first available driver will probably
become the de facto standard, we could organize a nice competition...
As I presume OS/2, LINUX, and NT are all about the same when
it comes to device drivers, I think some programmers could
unite and produce a certain kind of compatibility between
tape formats and maybe even re-use code. Are there existing
Jumbo drivers for LINUX or NT? Please indicate your interest
in this project and if you think you could assist in any way
(e.g. "I have tried it for seven years but could not get around
timing problems" etc.), please mail me or post it here using
some QIC80 word in your subject line.
Regards,
Jeroen
--
Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers, research engineer at | Stop connecting computers;
Infolab, Tilburg University, The Netherlands | start connecting people!
=============================================================
[Blinded by the MS-Window]__
=============================================================
From: edb@teal.csn.org (J. R. Sims)
Subject: Re: QIC80 Jumbo drive support SUMMARY
Organization: Colorado Memory Systems; Loveland, CO
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 22:38:59 GMT
In article <pdhC4IJKp.9EG@netcom.com> pdh@netcom.com (P D H)
writes:
:: [deleted] ::
-I tried to convince them to reconsider the issue of that cost vs.
-the profit of selling more drives. At least 2 people I talked
-to said they would bring it up when the chance arrived. I talked
-to them in terms of the LINUX system market potentials. I can't
-see how they can ignore the OS/2 market.
We sell the .. for OS/2.
:: [deleted] ::
->You can get all the specs you need from the QIC committee.
:: [deleted] ::
:: [see QIC NEWS vol.1 no.1] ::
->There is no information on _how_ to access the controller,
:: [deleted] ::
:: [see QIC NEWS vol.1 no.2] ::
->I called CMS and could not get any information. They said that
->their method of accessing the drive is proprietary and they
->would not release it. I suspected this was the case. They
->recommended contacting the people who do the QIC standard.
:: [deleted] ::
-Apparently the customer support people have been told to
-give that answer. I've been trying to tell them that such
-an answer is inappropriate and is even insulting to technically
-minded customers, since the real issue is making use of their drives. The last person I talked to at CMS, I stressed
-that I would have to sell my CMS drive off and get something
-like a Viper (I'm really undecided) simply because the CMS
-drive didn't do what I wanted because the software didn't
-do it (even though I or many other could have easily written
-software to do so and in turn increase their hardware sales).
This goes back to the amount of support we can provide. The
software and communications are not as simple as they may appear.
The specs are also long and terse.
-I'm still hoping to reach the head of marketing and try
-to convince that person that sales really can go up if
-the drives can be made to work in all kinds of situations.
-Personally I have found the hardware to be good. The installation
-instructions were among the best I have seen (it was an easy
-installation for a parallel port drive). But the software they
-provided was awkward to deal with even for backing up DOS files
-(what I do now, but not in the future).
:: [deleted] ::
-> If Colorado Memory Systems tape drives probably have
->proprietary stuff making the supposed QIC-80 compatibility
->false, then how would one right software to run their tapes
->drives. I might be interested in working on OS/2 device
->drivers but I don't have any experience in writing drivers.
->I'm willing to learn but I'm working on my Ph.D. in
->Computer Science and I want to get done as soon as I can. Though,
->I could spend some free time on learning about device drivers and
->programming one. I'm going to ..
:: [deleted] ::
-The issue of what bits to lay out on the tape where is ..
:: [deleted] ::
:: [see future issues of QIC NEWS] ::
->So, the demand of good, cheap, dumb, simple, working, and reliable
->tape backup software for CMS lookalikes may correctly be described
->as HUGE. Unfortunately, CMS denies this, and sits on their DOS
->and Windogs software, which undoubtedly brings in tons of money.
->We don't even mention Sytos+ here.
:: [deleted] ::
Our software group is quite active. They have to support new
hardware as it comes out while doing new software development.
->We hereby declare the hunt for CMS Jumbo controller programming
->information opened! All Possible Means Are Allowed.
Things are a litter easier now...
-"CMS, Inc." means that ownership seems to be closed as well. I wonder if
-they might ever want to go public on their stock?
Perhaps you like our new name - "Colorado Memory Systems, a wholly
owned subsidiary of Hewlett Packard" (as of ~October)
Rob
=============================================================
[The First Breakdown]__
=============================================================
From: "J. Robert Sims III" <edb@csn.org>
To: hoppie@kub.nl (Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers)
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 09:44:08 -0700 (MST)
I just got the file with the select/unselect commands. It's quite
simple. All drives we sell through retail channels have a drive
ID of 0, so the command would be 46, 2.
This was actually proposed as a modification to the QIC spec at one
time, so I don't know why the big deal is made of it.
Rob
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Proposed Change to QIC-117 Common Command Set Interface Specification
The following two commands would be added to Table 2a:
Code Command Name Illegal Modes Required States
---- ------------ ------------- ---------------
E B R N W C E R
46 Select Tape Drive ----- - - - - - - - -
47 Deselect Tape Drive ----- - - - - - - - -
Also, the Select Tape Drive command would be added to Table 2b:
Code Command Name Argument(s)
---- ------------ -----------
46 Select Tape Drive Drive ID + 2
Command timings are added to Table 2d:
Code Command Name 250 Kbps/XL 500Kbps/XL Event
---- ------------ ----------- ---------- -----
46 Select Tape Drive 0 -----
47 Deselect Tape Drive 0 -----
Command descriptions as follows:
(46) Select Tape Drive. Select the tape drive by activating
appropriate interface signals. If the tape drive is already
selected then this command is treated as a NOP. This command takes
one argument in the N+2 form. The argument is the tape drive ID.
(47) Deselect Tape Drive. Deselect the tape drive by de-activating
appropriate interface signals. If the tape drive is already
deselected then this command is treated as a NOP. A Soft Reset
will also deselect the tape drive.
<M>__ Meaningless dribble.
"There was the worry. The printout showed the hacker to be a
competent systems programmer, able to exploit obscure bugs
that we'd never seen before. What else had he done?"
-The Cuckoo's Egg; p.28
-Clifford Stoll
"To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no
choreography, and the dancers hit each other."
- Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"
"Work on this book began in the ..... Although we at ...,
over several years, had faithfully chronicled the growing
role of the electronic digital computer in the so-called
information revolution, the machine suddenly loomed up into
a colossal scientific, industrial, and social phenomenon."
-The Computer Age; preface
-Gilbert Burck and the editors of Fortune
"Hobb's dynasty is in danger of extinction unless old man
Hobbs can find a suitable woman for his grandson, one who
is lusty and sensual enough to simulate young Hobbs to passion
in order to produce an heir. The spirited, but inexperienced
Ginger is chosen - and then educated in all the sexual pleasures
of the flesh."
-Ginger
-Vivid Video
"Heard this guy Bill Gates is getting married.. strange I think,
how would you like to be married to a guy known for MicroSoft?"
-Herb Cain
-S.F. Chronicle
___________________________________________________________________________
Jesus Monroy Jr jmonroy@netcom.com
/386BSD/device-drivers /fd /qic /clock /documentation
___________________________________________________________________________